Your Right to Know

With Republicans retaining their grasp on the U.S. House yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner
is vowing to press for an overhaul of the tax code to reinvigorate the economy, while also cutting
federal spending in an effort to reduce the government’s huge deficit.

In an interview last weekend while campaigning in northeastern Ohio, Boehner said he hopes to
see an end to the gridlock among the House, the Senate and the White House that has made it
virtually impossible to agree on measures to reduce the deficit or spark the economy.

“No question that we’d all like to end the gridlock,” said Boehner, R-West Chester. “But that
means we have to be willing to take on big challenges to find ways to solve those problems.

“I think what I need to accomplish is pretty clear. We’ve got to fix our tax code so that can
reinvigorate our economy and put Americans back to work.

“Secondly, we’ve got to solve our spending problem. You can’t continue to spend a trillion
dollars more than what you take in. It’s immoral, that $16 trillion worth of debt. I think we need
to set a national policy to become energy-independent. We can do this, and we should do this for
the national security and to protect the pocketbooks of the American people.”

With President Barack Obama winning re-election yesterday, Boehner will continue to have an
adversary in the White House.

Boehner has pledged repeatedly to oppose the president’s efforts to raise income taxes and
investment taxes on families earning more than $250,000 a year. All of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts
expire at the end of December, and Obama has insisted that they be extended only for families
earning less than $250,000 annually.

As Boehner spoke to a crowd of about 300 Republicans in the northeastern Ohio town of
Painesville on Saturday night, he sounded like a politician who intends to remain active in
Washington.

“I never thought I’d walk away from my business to do this, but I’ve got to tell you what — what
I’ve been doing in the Congress is far more important than making a lot more money,” Boehner said, “
because what’s more money going to mean if we don’t have a country doing well?”